This is CDR

In this episode This Is CDR is pleased to welcome Teresa Hartmann and Ted Christie-Miller from BeZero Carbon to present and discuss the company's work as a carbon ratings agency, and how independent, risk-based, project-level ratings can help build the market trust necessary to scale high-quality CDR.

​About Teresa:

​Teresa Hartmann is the Chief Ratings Officer at BeZero Carbon. Teresa has extensive experience in scaling carbon market development, transparency, and integrity. Before joining BeZero, Teresa led market formation for the ICVCM and helped develop the Core Carbon Principles. Teresa also held roles at WEF, UNEP, and a national park in Africa, as well as authored key reports on nature and climate finance such as WEF’s Nature and Net Zero report.

​About Ted:

​Ted Christie-Miller is Director of Carbon Removal at BeZero Carbon, a global carbon ratings agency. Ted joined BeZero in October 2021. Prior to BeZero, he founded and led the bipartisan Getting to Zero climate policy programme at the thinktank Onward. Ted regularly writes in the national media on the topics of climate and carbon markets and is a regular speaker at carbon events around the world.

​About BeZero Carbon - https://bezerocarbon.com/

​BeZero is a carbon ratings agency. Its ratings and risk products equip world-leading organisations with the knowledge, tools and confidence to make better climate decisions. Its aim is to scale investment in environmental markets that deliver a sustainable future.

In this Episode we welcome Holocene Co-Founder and CEO Anca Timofte to present and discuss the company's novel low-temperature DAC process which leverages organic chemistry for scalable and affordable CDR.

Holocene: https://theholocene.co

​ABOUT ANCA:

​Anca Timofte serves as Holocene’s CEO, having started Holocene from her Stanford GSB dorm room after 8 years of experience designing & developing DAC facilities at Climeworks. Originally from Romania, Anca holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering from Washington University. She earned a Master of Science in Environmental Engineering from ETH Zurich and completed her research thesis at Stanford University. She completed a Master of Business Administration from Stanford University focused on climate technology deployment and climate finance with an emphasis on carbon dioxide removal.

In this Episode This Is CDR welcomes Robert Höglund back to the program to present and discuss CDR.fyi's recently released 2023 Year in Review and other key CDR market developments.

CDR.fyi: https://www.cdr.fyi/

​About Robert:

​Robert Höglund is an advisor in carbon dioxide removal (CDR) and climate impact. He manages the charitable Milkywire Climate Transformation Fund, co-founded the CDR market overview CDR.fyi, works with the NGO Carbon Gap, and writes reports and articles on carbon removal and corporate climate contributions. He is also a member of the EU Expert Group on Carbon Removals (observer status), and of the Science-based Target Initiative's (SBTi) Technical Advisory Group.

​This week Toby and Megha welcome Dan Maxbauer and Sean McCauley from Alkali Earth to present and discuss the company's novel process which delivers high-quality, permanent, and verifiable CDR through optimized application of alkaline industrial minerals in gravel roads.

Alkali Earth: https://www.alkali.earth/

​About Dan:

​Dan Maxbauer is Alkali Earth's Co-Founder and Science Lead. Dan is an Assistant Professor of Geology at Carleton College and has expertise in mineral weathering and carbon cycling along with past experience consulting on carbon removal methodologies and project review with Verra, Frontier Climate, and XPRIZE.

​About Sean:

​Sean McCauley is Alkali Earth's Co-Founder and Business Lead. Sean is a Carleton College geology alumnus, PhD geochemist from Cal Berkeley, and has spent a long career working in consulting and private equity with large corporations such as McKinsey, TPG Capital, Target, and Charles Schwab.

In this episode Toby and Megha welcome Rory Brown and Jasper Wong from Airhive to present and discuss the company's novel DAC process which employs fluidisation to dramatically accelerate the mineralization of atmospheric CO2.

Airhive: https://airhive.earth/

​About Rory:

​Rory Brown is Co-Founder and CEO of Airhive. Rory is an experienced manager and strategist who has delivered over £200M in overseas programmes for the UK government. Rory brings leadership and delivery expertise to rapidly scale Airhive’s technology.

​About Jasper:

​Jasper Wong is Co-Founder and CTO of Airhive. Jasper is a PhD research engineer from Imperial College London with a background in decarbonisation. He holds a BA and MEng from the University of Cambridge. Jasper brings scientific and engineering expertise to Airhive’s technology.

This week we are pleased to welcome Alex Gagnon and Julian Sachs from Banyu Carbon to present and discuss the company's novel photochemical CDR process to capture carbon dioxide from seawater.

https://www.banyucarbon.com/

​About Alex:

​Dr. Alex Gagnon (PhD Chemistry, Caltech; BS, UC-Berkeley) is an expert in marine carbon who was recognized with a National Science Foundation CAREER award. He has shared his work with President Obama and as an invited panelist for the National Academies. He is deeply involved in marine carbon removal research in both his academic and now his business roles. As a member of a mountain rescue team during graduate school, Alex learned the value of leadership, resilience, and community, lesson that he brings to his role as an entrepreneur. The next 20 years will determine if we can manage atmospheric CO2 and keep global temperatures below dangerous levels. Alex can think of no higher calling than developing climate technology to meet this challenge. Alex is on leave from his faculty duties at the University of Washington to advance the carbon-dioxide-removal technology developed with co-founder Julian Sachs. Alex loves to run, hike, and garden with his family.

​About Julian:

​Dr. Julian Sachs (PhD, MIT; BS, MIT) is a marine organic chemist and climate scientist. His 120 scientific publications have been cited more than 8,000 times. He’s been obsessed with weather and climate since childhood when his family evacuated Martha’s Vineyard in advance of a hurricane and a blizzard closed his New Jersey school for a week. Majoring in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Science in college, earning a PhD in Chemical Oceanography with a dissertation on past climate, then researching and teaching climate science for the last 20+ years fueled his passion to understand the earth system. No longer satisfied with studying the global warming threat, Julian is motivated to help avert it. Toward that end Julian is on leave from his faculty position at the University of Washington to advance Banyu Carbon’s carbon removal technology. Outside Banyu, Julian loves to do anything on a bike (inclines & obstacles preferred), snowboard, toss frisbees to his dog, and spend time with his wife and two teenagers.

In this episode of This Is CDR week we are pleased to welcome Rudy Kahsar and Gloria See to present and discuss RMI's November 2023 Applied Innovation Roadmap (AIR) for CDR that a provides comprehensive, objective, and action-oriented perspective on how to best advance the technical readiness of 32 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches this decade.

Roadmap Link https://rmi.org/insight/the-applied-innovation-roadmap-for-cdr/

​About Rudy:

​Dr. Rudy Kahsar is a Manager on RMI’s Climate-Aligned Industries CDR team. Prior to joining RMI, Rudy led the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Track in the Masters of Environment program at CU Boulder where he taught classes in energy policy, energy systems and technologies, data science and visualization in energy, the energy water nexus, and international energy and sustainability. Before that, he served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Policy Fellow in the US Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., first in the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy and then in the Advanced Manufacturing Office on the Strategic Analysis Team. He has also worked in energy consulting, focusing on measurement and verification, energy efficiency, and renewables integration for the oil and gas and electricity sectors.

​Rudy’s Ph.D. focused on heterogenous catalysis with applications in bio based fuels and chemicals.

​About Gloria:

​Dr. Gloria See is a Senior Associate on RMI's Climate-Aligned Industries Team, working on CDR pathways with a focus on biogenic approaches. Gloria is an electrical engineer and has worked on hardware and model development for precision agriculture, photovoltaic devices, environmental monitoring in museums, and wearable sensors. She also has experience in business development, academic research, entrepreneurship, and sustainable product development, including field research in India and Tanzania. Gloria earned a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.'

In this episode Toby and Megha welcome Dr. Antonius Gagern and Irene Polyni from Carbon to Sea, the leading initiative to evaluate whether ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) can safely remove and store billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.

https://carbontosea.org/

​About Antonius:

​Dr. Antonius Gagern is the Executive Director at the Carbon to Sea, a non-profit initiative to systematically evaluate the viability of ocean-based CDR pathways. Prior to this, Antonius spent five years building philanthropic strategies to advance ocean CDR, first at CEA Consulting and later as a Director at Additional Ventures, which spun out Carbon to Sea. Before entering the CDR universe, Antonius was a natural resource economist focused on fisheries and marine conservation in the tropics, as well as on climate smart agriculture. Antonius holds degrees in Biology (BSc.), Marine Ecology (MSc.) and Natural Resource Economics (PhD).

​About Irene:

​Irene Polnyi leads the development of Carbon to Sea’s global field research network. Before joining Carbon to Sea Initiative, Irene served as Executive Director of the Institute for Abundant Oceans, where she led the strategic direction and scientific mandates with Professor Carlos Duarte to unlock new methods to fund and develop blue natural capital. Prior to her work in oceans, Irene co-led a nonprofit accelerator focused on human rights and democracy-building in Southeast Asia and was a management consultant for over 10 years. Irene holds a BS in Economics and Marketing from NYU’s Stern School of Business and lives in Brooklyn, NY.

https://www.rewind.earth/

https://openaircollective.com/

This week This Is CDR welcomes Rewind Co-Founders Ram Amar and Professor Dror Angel who will discuss the company's approach to CDR via terrestrial biomass sinking in anoxic zones of the Black Sea.

​About Ram:

​Ram Amar is the CEO of Rewind.earth. Ram's background is in physics, computer science and entrepreneurship. Since selling his previous startup, Alooma, to Google, Ram has turned to work on mitigating the climate crisis. He co-founded a think tank and advocacy project for a Net Zero Israel, started a community of entrepreneurs transitioning to climate-tech, and after 3 years of research, co-founded Rewind.

​About Professor Angel:

​Prof. Dror Angel leads the Applied Marine Biology & Ecology Research group at the Department of Maritime Civilizations, University of Haifa. He studies a variety of environmental issues that affect and are affected by human activities, such as aquaculture and microplastic pollution. Dror’s group explores ecological and socio-economic consequences of invasive species and jellyfish blooms, employs citizen science in the study of jellyfish and has developed a public website and application for this purpose. The group also studies carbon sequestration as a means to combat climate change and the key scientific processes involved.

This week we are pleased to welcome Dai Ellis and Dr. Jennifer Mills from the founding team of Cascade Climate, a newly launched field-building organization for open-system climate interventions, starting with enhanced weathering (EW).

Cascade Climate: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cascade-climate/

​About Dai:

​Dai Ellis is an entrepreneur with experience founding and scaling high-performing nonprofit and for-profit ventures across climate, health, and education. He is a thought leader on field building and market shaping for social impact. Earlier in his career, Dai led the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s pioneering work on market shaping for drugs, vaccines, and other health products in the Global South. More recently, he has been at the forefront of efforts to import learning and tools from global health market shaping into climate tech. Between his time in global health and climate, Dai spent the better part of a decade building education ventures, including a VC-backed pan-African network of K-12 schools called Nova Pioneer offering world-class education at affordable tuition levels.

​About Jennifer:

​Dr. Jennifer Mills is a geochemist by training working at the frontier of climate solutions and carbon removal. She was most recently a Senior Scientist at Heirloom Carbon, where she helped develop and scale a pioneering direct air capture process underpinned by carbon mineralization. She is a carbon cycle specialist with expertise spanning terrestrial to marine ecosystems, and fundamental geochemistry to environmental economics. Jenny holds a PhD in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from UC Berkeley. She earned an MPhil in Earth Science from Cambridge and MSc in Environmental Technology from Imperial College London where she was a Marshall Scholar, and received her BA from Northwestern University. Hailing originally from the Midwest United States, Jenny is an avid urban gardener and former president of the Churchill College vegetable growers society.